Pat the Cat (A Flip-the-Page Rhyme-and-Read Book)

In league with her husband, author and illustrator Colin Hawkins, Jacqui Hawkins is part of the popular children's book-writing team that has created such popular works as Tog the Dog, Terrible, Terrible Tiger, and Foxy and Friends Go Racing. Featuring engaging animal characters, an offbeat sense of fun, and engaging texts, these and many other show more titles have proved popular with the picture-book set in both Hawkinses' native England as well as in the United States and many other countries. In addition to their books' constant presence on store shelves, the Hawkinses and their comic vision have also made their way to British television in the form of a weekly series featuring the character "Foxy," the main character in such books as Foxy in the Kitchen, Foxy Plays Hide and Seek, and Foxy and His Little Sister. After forming a friendship during their teen years, Colin and Jacqui fell in love and were married in 1968. One of the things cementing their long relationship has been their common interests in art and writing, which they have combined in their successful career as picture book authors. A few years after their first child, Finbar, was born, the Hawkinses began coming up with ideas for story books, and decided to approach several publishers with their proposals in the form of "roughs": words accompanied by sketchy drawings. Despite little initial interest, they persisted, and their first book, Witches, was purchased by Granada in 1981. That book would be the start of something big -- within a decade the prolific Hawkins duo could boast authorship of more than sixty titles. Interestingly, on many of their earliest books, Jacqui did not have her name on the title page; in Witches, for example, the book was credited to "Colin Hawkins and an old witch." This would change after a few titles, and after Colin demanded that his wife receive equal billing from publishers who incorrectly considered her only a minor contributor to each volume. As Colin recalled to Books for Keeps interviewer Stephanie Nettell, [one] publisher said, "'Well, we can't put every little housewife's name on all the books.' Well, without this little housewife, the book wouldn't be here!" (Bowker Author Biography) show less